Who actually ambushed the deal in the beginning?

Tao Cheng

The characters within the game make you convince that Diaz was the one that tried to get Tommy and Vic killed. Looking at this picture made me suspicious. The mob boss gets angry that the money and the drugs are missing, yet there are drugs laying on the table when he's calling Tommy.

I believe around the final mission, it was implied that Lance did business with Sonny Forelli at one point. He was fed up with Vic treating him like a kid as seen in Vice City Stories and I'm pretty sure he'll show no regard with what will happen to his brother, then use Diaz as a scapegoat to gain more power. So I'm wondering, was it the Diaz Cartel or the Forelli Mafia that set them up?

Tyla

It was Diaz. The whole Sonny and the drugs thing is a total red herring.

There's far too much involved for Sonny to have orchestrated just to give Tommy something to do in Vice.

The Forelli's are crapping themselves because their most notorious killer is about to be released from a prison sentence they thought would be endless. He's either going to screw up their relations with the other organizations by his being on the street again or he's going to come after the family, blaming them for his incarceration.

The solution? Let's set him up a welcome home drug deal in Florida and sling him $3mil just to let him know there's no ill feeling. Hell, maybe he'll build up an organization - one we can take down at a later stage. They're pretty happy with this, as you can see in the first cutscene.

The rest takes place behind the scenes.

Forelli sends Ken Rosenberg to arrange the deal with Colonel Cortez and the Vance Brothers. Cortez is like a neutral broker, if you will.

Gonzales, being Cortez's right hand man, has the inside track on the deal and squeals to Diaz.

Diaz employs contract killer and communications expert Leo Teal to gather the time, date and location of the deal. Assume he bugs Rosenberg's car, because the Vance brothers fly in by chopper.

Teal jumps the deal with the Streetwannabes Guy and some other unknown goon. Vic Vance and the two Forelli goons are killed. Teal's crew recover the merchandise for Diaz.

The aftermath? Vercetti beats Teal to death and silences their only real lead.

He takes Teal's phone. The unknown phone call Vercetti gets afterward is from the streetwannabes guy, who is promptly spooked. He steals from "Diaz's merchandise" and goes into hiding, hence The Chase. Notice how jittery he is about his location?

Cortez has Vercetti silence Gonzales. Gonzales is protected in that mission by two Diaz goons. Cortez distances himself further from suspicion, all while having Tommy run around town thinking Cortez knows more than he actually does.

Diaz has Vercetti track down the streetwannabes guy in The Chase and recover the money in Phnom Penh '86. And that's the last you hear of it.

Mindf*ck or what?

If anyone other than Diaz messed up the deal, then my money is on Cortez arranging the set up.

Raz3r95

Tommy got the money AND the coke back after killing Diaz and taking over his mansion, all he had to do was to call Sonny to give him his goods back, but he didn't so he started making his own business and let Sonny wait, even if he already had the money.

In the end he wanted to fool Sonny with fake cash.

Lance betrayed Tommy because he knew that Tommy was messing with the Mafia and he tought it would be dangerous to stay with Tommy and he also hated him since Tommy treated him like a bitch.

Tao Cheng

That's a good insight. Just wondering how did Sonny get the drugs laying on the table as seen through "An Old Friend" when his goons claim they "don't touch that stuff" prior to considering about their VC business venture.

Dope_0110

Tyla's explanation is pretty good, and it makes me rethink my original stance on this. Originally, due to the drugs and money on the table, and Sonny's weird facial expression when Tommy tells him about the deal (he looks as if he's satisfied and laughing behind the angry facade he makes for Tommy) I believed Sonny sent Tommy to Vice City just so he doesn't get into the streets of LC. To make an explanation he gave him the money and set up a deal, where he planned to kill Tommy and get back his money, as well as taking the drugs.

But, since Sonny is in LC and Tommy calls him right after the deal (let it even be a few hours later in real time), it still seems like it would be too early to have the drugs on the table in LC. Thus, I'm inclined to believe it was Diaz after all.

wiizardii

Diaz was always a sneaky rat in VCS if I remember. He was the one who set up Tommy and the Lance brothers.

The Forelli has no reason to stage a drug deal like that, it would make no sense for their part. For starters: A former forelli member Tommy just got out from a 15 year jail sentance, wich already made the Forelli's lose their balls. They knew that Tommy would be a problem that would not get solved easy, especially if he was in prison, and the Forelli's forgot about Tommy because they proabably thought that he would be in jail forever, but the problem started when they heard that he got out of prison: he would either accuse the Forelli's for having something to do with the ambush back in 1971 that made Tommy go to prison and avoid death sentance, or he would do something else... So, Forelli's thought ''hey, why not give him a very warm welcome: and give him millions of dollars worth of a drug deal? Lets send him down south for that then!!''

And if the Forelli's set up the drug deal, why would they keep Tommy in VC to get Sonny's money back? It makes no sense at Forelli Family's part: they would lose alot of Street credibility in Liberty City and lose relationships with the other famillies, and anything dramatic could have started with Tommy back. Especially with Salvatore Leone just becoming the don of the Leone Family somewhere in the 80's just prior to the drug deal incident in 1986, he just started his run as the Family don. He could have done anything foolish for either being new or aggressive.

Tyla

For sake of argument, what if it was Colonel Cortez behind the jump all along and the Forellis were collateral damage?

He's got cause: his right-hand man has been selling his secrets to Diaz for the past two years. Even more reason to jump the deal: Vic Vance empowered Gonzales' treacherous relationship with Diaz by doing jobs so many jobs for him. Arranging to have the deal jumped would've been the perfect way to kill two birds with one stone. How?

It should've gone down like so: Cortez hires Leo Teal to jump the deal after Ken Rosenberg approaches the Colonel to help him set up the transaction. Leo and the mercenaries successfully disrupt the deal -- everybody dies. The Mafia figures Ricardo Diaz is behind it and send hitmen down to rub Diaz out. After all, the Forellis were the most powerful crime family in Liberty City, right? While the Mafia take out Diaz, Cortez quietly has Gonzales exterminated by Teal and slips out of the country aboard his yacht. Sounds simple, huh?

Hell. He could even "recover" the $3 million for the Forellis and make himself look like a hero.

But it all f*cked up. People are looking to blame Cortez for the ambush and to top it all off he's got this Mafia psycho crashing his yacht parties looking for answers. What can he do about it? Brainwave - he thinks let's use the angry mob guy to tie up all my loose ends. Let's point him in the direction of Gonzales and Diaz and while he's at it, let's have him run around doing errands for me with the French.

It turns out quite nicely for the Colonel. First Tommy takes out Gonzales and frees Cortez's name from "the stench of corruption." Then he vouches for Vercetti to Diaz and places Tommy in Ricardo's organization. Now he's got an inside man -- when the time comes, Cortez will be able to help him take down Diaz. Obviously, Lance making his move f*cks that all up but Cortez achieves what what he set out to do -- exact revenge against Diaz, Gonzales and to a lesser extent, Victor Vance.

What do I think makes a strong case for Cortez being behind it? His slimy, slippery demeanour. Even Vercetti knows he's using him. And then there's the fact he's survived "thirty coups and nine death sentences" and "always manages to survive and get promoted." Some silver tongue on that man.

HollandNights

I mean, COME ON GUYS! 12 years and nobody knows what music?!? (I believe 12 years)

Off topic:Also 13 years of GTA III and nobody know the ending music....--'

Topic:I don't belive the Cortez Conspiracy.He was too good to Tommy.Showed him the Vice City way.Imagine if when he is on the top he discovers it was Cortez?He would trained his own reaper

This is true, but that would be similar to Scarface. Frank Lopez bringing Tony Montana and Manny Ray into his organisation, training them and showing them how to do business in Miami; only for him to ultimately be killed by Tony.

chilleverest

Did you and some of the guy here even watch the cut scene ? and Tyla pretty much explained everything above, diaz had close ties with gonzales who was cotrez's right hand, cortez help set up the deal, and gonzales squealed about the deal to diaz.

chilleverest

For sake of argument, what if it was Colonel Cortez behind the jump all along and the Forellis were collateral damage?

He's got cause: his right-hand man has been selling his secrets to Diaz for the past two years. Even more reason to jump the deal: Vic Vance empowered Gonzales' treacherous relationship with Diaz by doing jobs so many jobs for him. Arranging to have the deal jumped would've been the perfect way to kill two birds with one stone. How?

It should've gone down like so: Cortez hires Leo Teal to jump the deal after Ken Rosenberg approaches the Colonel to help him set up the transaction. Leo and the mercenaries successfully disrupt the deal -- everybody dies. The Mafia figures Ricardo Diaz is behind it and send hitmen down to rub Diaz out. After all, the Forellis were the most powerful crime family in Liberty City, right? While the Mafia take out Diaz, Cortez quietly has Gonzales exterminated by Teal and slips out of the country aboard his yacht. Sounds simple, huh?

Hell. He could even "recover" the $3 million for the Forellis and make himself look like a hero.

But it all f*cked up. People are looking to blame Cortez for the ambush and to top it all off he's got this Mafia psycho crashing his yacht parties looking for answers. What can he do about it? Brainwave - he thinks let's use the angry mob guy to tie up all my loose ends. Let's point him in the direction of Gonzales and Diaz and while he's at it, let's have him run around doing errands for me with the French.

It turns out quite nicely for the Colonel. First Tommy takes out Gonzales and frees Cortez's name from "the stench of corruption." Then he vouches for Vercetti to Diaz and places Tommy in Ricardo's organization. Now he's got an inside man -- when the time comes, Cortez will be able to help him take down Diaz. Obviously, Lance making his move f*cks that all up but Cortez achieves what what he set out to do -- exact revenge against Diaz, Gonzales and to a lesser extent, Victor Vance.

What do I think makes a strong case for Cortez being behind it? His slimy, slippery demeanour. Even Vercetti knows he's using him. And then there's the fact he's survived "thirty coups and nine death sentences" and "always manages to survive and get promoted." Some silver tongue on that man.

Treacherous bastard.

I am having hard time buying the idea of colonel's involvement in the setup. Because, nowhere in the plot does he know about gonzales' defecting him, he only comes to know about gonzales' snitching later, after investigating upon Tommy's request. So he has no reason to takeout gonzales before the deal.

Second, had colonel been working with Teal, he would have not let Tommy run around investigating or in this case, silence teal in the first place, because colonel cannot afford teal spilling the beans.

Third, the game lays it openly out for us that diaz, already on his prime of his mafia empire wants the cut of every action, has gonzales give the whereabouts of the deal, jumps into the action but leaves several loose end that hunts him down eventually.

XTad

In the very first cutscene Sonny talks about "setting Tommy loose in Vice City, giving him a little cash to get started and visiting him after few months". He might changed his mind but setting ambush like this requires planning and still it doesn't make too much sense to me. I think that the deal wasn't supposed to be an one-shot operation but they wanted to expand down south and get involved in new kind of bussines for a long term period.

chapapote

And if the Forelli's set up the drug deal, why would they keep Tommy in VC to get Sonny's money back? It makes no sense at Forelli Family's part: they would lose alot of Street credibility in Liberty City and lose relationships with the other famillies, and anything dramatic could have started with Tommy back. Especially with Salvatore Leone just becoming the don of the Leone Family somewhere in the 80's just prior to the drug deal incident in 1986, he just started his run as the Family don. He could have done anything foolish for either being new or aggressive.

Were the Leones a threat back to the Forellis then? I remember a comment from Salvatore in "SA: The Introduction" about how the Forellis weakened after Sonny's death, as if that was the only reason the Leones managed to rise to prominence.

That thing has always bugged me... I think (I may be wrong) the GTA 3 website showed the Forellis as a split faction from the Leones, something that seems to have since been retconned. Judging from what we've seen in later games, it could be even the opposite thing.